Volleyball Teambuilding Exercises

Volleyball is a high-intensity, fast-paced team sport. Often teams are forced to spend large amounts of time scrimmaging, practicing and running drills together. Effectively socializing your team is a good way to build up team unity. Incorporating fun, light team-building exercises will increase trust within the team and can even lead to friendships off the court. Standing united as a team not only promotes healthier practices, but increases the team's chances of winning. A team that stands united stands as winners.

Types

There are many different ways to promote bonding within a team. There are also several factors that will influence your decision on which type is best suited for your team. How many make up your team? Is the team all girl, all boy or coed? Does the team have any special-needs players? These are all questions to consider when pondering bonding exercises and activities. All-girl teams might favor sleepovers, and all-boy teams might enjoy laser tag. The key is to tap into the team and incorporate their interests. Other types of exercises can be sport related, as in having a team scrimmage by dividing the team into groups and having a friendly competition. Varying the groups will encourage dialogue and force them to rely and trust their teammates to help problem solve. This is one of the most effective team-building methods, as it helps the whole team learn to trust and encourage each other.

Benefits

All teams will benefit when a coach takes a vested interest in helping them bond as a team. The first and most noticeable benefit will be the calm and friendly atmosphere of the team. First-time meetings and team circles can be awkward when people who don't know each other are forced to interact. Team building will ease that awkwardness, and over time, camaraderie will be established. Another benefit of team building is better strategy and team chemistry on the court. It has been scientifically proven that teams who work closely and bond play better and win more often.

Why All-Girl Teams Tend to Benefit Most.

All-girl teams are both at an advantage and disadvantage compared to boys' teams. The emotional bonding that occurs within an all-female team is deep and more substantial than that of most all-boy teams. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. When the bonds within a female team are disrupted or betrayed, the team can cave inward, and trust can be withdrawn due to hurt feelings. This would not be good thing for the team, as game play and team morale would suffer. Conversely, when a team is harmonious and the emotional bonds are strong and unbreakable, this type of atmosphere is very healthy for the team and leads to trust and confidence, which produces winning results.

All-Boy Team-Building Exercise

Gather your team in a large circle, placing the volleyball in the middle on the floor. Have each boy link arms with the person on his right and his left. This exercise should preferably take place in a gymnasium. Tell the boys that as a team they must move from their current position (linked together and in a circle) to the far end of the gymnasium and back to their current place. They must do this, all the while keeping the ball in the circle, and they can only use their feet to control the ball's movement. This is a cumbersome exercise and will surely cause some minor frustration, but as a whole, the team must stay calm. Staying calm is the only way to solve a problem and get the rewards. You should make it clear that it is an exercise and that they must work together.

All-Girl Team-Building Exercise

Divide the team in half, with one half as Team A and the other half as Team B. Each team will be on either side of the net. The girls on each team will take turns spiking, and as they spike, they have to say their names and a fact about themselves. The next person to spike must say something about herself and also recite what the previous person/persons said about herself/themselves. This is a memory exercise that helps the girls get to know each other and also sharpens their playing skills. At some point, someone might forget a fact. That person must forfeit her spike, and the next person will have her turn. Once all facts are completed, tally the scores of which team remembered the most facts, and have that team and the "losing" team sit together. Tell team members to partner with someone not from their own team and talk about themselves. By the end of this exercise, every girl will have more information on her new teammates.

Coed Team-Building Exercises

Coed teams have the best of both worlds--great friendships and compassion, as well as strategic fervor and competitive drive. Boys and girls working together as equals can be the biggest challenge with coed teams. Divide the team up into a girl's team and a boy's team. Make the girl's team captain a boy and the boy's team captain a girl. This will allow each team to have compassion, understanding and respect for their fellow opposite-gender teammates. Have them compete against each other and then afterward, ask the captains and teams what they learned through this exercise. Explain to them that they must always treat each other with respect and value each individual's talent. This is often an effective exercise with high school-age players who may not have played with the opposite sex before.